Functional Medicine Doctor: These Are the Warning Signs Your Body Is Overwhelmed

0:00When it comes to love these days, we like to think that we've got it all figured out. We have this false sense of, I have control over this. I can filter for someone who's over six feet tall. I can filter for this religion. But it's not a filter to turn on to say, how kind am I? How loyal am I? This Valentine's season, The Happiness Lab is digging into what really shapes our closest connections. With smart, practical insights from experts on love, intimacy, and belonging. Listen to The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos, wherever you get your podcasts.

0:35this is a podcast about relationships and it starts with the relationship with yourself and your relationship with your body and with your physical health is the same thing as your relationship is with your mental health how do we add life to your years like well how are you feeling now like are do you have a full life now and i see so many people kept back from living the life that they want to that's on their heart because when you're dysregulated inflamed foggy wired and tired you are not thriving it's impacting your relationship with yourself and it's impacting your relationship with other people oh 100 yeah well thank you for being here um your message really is very important you know i think something that i was starting to tell you that most people don't know about me is that i'm obsessed with the mind-body connection and I taught yoga for almost 20 years that was like my life before this and so the world of meditation um Chinese medicine acupuncture um how the mind affects the physical state of the body and how the physical state of the body affects the mind is something other than relation I've been obsessed with it for many many years and I you know and then I got introduced to the work of Dr.

1:51Sarno, which is like how certain, certain physical pain can actually be emotional and being a highly emotional person myself, something that I've always known. And my mom has always told me, you know, sometimes you're going to feel certain, have certain symptoms, um, that are, that really are just because of like what you're feeling emotionally. So I, I love that your new book, Heal Your Cells, which is what you wrote with Dr. Josh Axe about cellular health being the most important thing. And you talk so much about the mind-body connection, but what actually is cellular health? I know it is this term that, okay, it has the word cell in it.

2:33We know we're made up of cells. If you've learned nothing else, if you learn nothing else in this episode that we are made up of cells, but it's, let's make it practical, right? We're made up of trillions of cells, 30 plus trillion cells. And the latest science, if you're looking at all the science in this scientific literature of understanding how well we live, how long we live, how does someone live a long, healthy, thriving life, it's looking at cellular mechanisms. It makes sense, right? Because if you look at organ systems, whether it be brain health, optimizing, or nervous system health, or your hormone health, or your gut health or your heart health, all of those organs are made up of cells.

3:13So to understand organ optimization, i.e. nervous system regulation, well, you have to look at the cells that make up the nervous system. And so, or like every other system of the body, the macro is the conversations that mainstream medicine is having. It's looking at organs and dysfunction of the organs and pathologizing the organs, understanding it, giving it a diagnosis code. But actually, the scientists looking at healthspan, people living long, healthy lives that are at sort of progressive, cutting edge of understanding how humans can thrive, they're actually looking at cellular pathways.

3:52And the research is clear. We are aging faster than ever. We have this accelerated cellular aging that's happening in our world today. There's a study in the book. It was published in Nature, I believe, out of Stanford. And they found one in five adults over the age of 50 had one organ aging significantly more rapidly than the rest of their body. Then how are we living longer as a species? We're living longer, but we have a longer lifespan but shorter healthspan. What researchers, not the same researchers, but other researchers looking at this morbidity gap, this sort of, we have in the United States and many Western nations have the most years of unhealthy life, basically.

4:39We're living longer, but we're not thriving. So we're keeping people alive, keeping them on pharmaceuticals to keep them alive. But anybody that knows most elderly people that they're not in a great place most of the time. They're alone. They're oftentimes in a care home. They're on lots of medications. They're immobile. It's not a great quality of life. So yeah, quantity of life is slightly up a bit, but the health span is actually worse. The United States spends more on healthcare than all industrialized nations, yet we have the shortest lifespan of all industrialized nations and the most chronic disease of all industrialized nations, and we spend the most for it.

5:16I mean, it's wild. So this uneven aging is happening on a cellular level, but why that Stanford study was so shocking to me is that if your heart cells were aging more rapidly, you are at over a 200 % increased risk of some cardiovascular heart failure, heart attack, stroke. If your brain cells, if your nervous system is aging more rapidly, you are at an 80 % increased risk of some neurodegenerative problem. So to understand what your cells are doing is really important for you to feel the way that you want to feel, to feel your best self. You need to understand cellular mechanisms. Another field of research, real quick, it's known in the literature as the information theory or information model of aging.

6:04And it's all cellular function. It's understanding that cells are becoming confused because of this epigenetic genetic mismatch, this chasm between our DNA, which hasn't changed in thousands of years, it's in the nucleus of every cell of our body, and the world around us. Our cells are living in a brave new world. And because of this mismatch, this evolutionary mismatch. But what's causing the evolutionary mismatch? Lots of things, which we can dig into the weeds of it all. But it's the physiological and the mental, emotional, spiritual. It is said shortly. It's when humans, mankind pretends to be God.

6:42There's unintended consequences and sometimes intended consequences. That's my short answer. But it's the foods we're eating or the foods we're not eating. it's environmental toxins that are new to the human landscape it is chronic stress unresolved trauma spiritual disconnection it's our relationship to light and what i would call dirty light it we have like are we in dirty light we are in dirty light so dirty light is a blessing it's a privilege but we need to how can we navigate this modern wild world in a more human way yeah and striking that balance so there's no it's how do we decrease that mismatch how do we create more alignment with where our cells drive from so they can be in proper function but our cellular clocks have lost track of time and they're accelerating in their tick talking and that's why you see this rapidity of of aging people i mean type 2 diabetes used to be called adult onset diabetes now i think The latest statistic is 38 % of preteens are pre-diabetic.

7:45Oh my God, what? So many kids. I see so many babies and toddlers and elementary school kids, teenagers that have autoimmune conditions. Girls are having their periods younger and younger. Why is this? It's all accelerated cellular aging. It used to be old age that people would see these things. Now it's happening younger and younger. Just because something's common doesn't make it normal. And all of this is a conversation of ourselves losing recognition of self. is how the researchers refer to it as, which I think is actually beautifully poetic if you think the deeper meaning of that is humanity has forgot where it came from.

8:19So if someone is struggling cellularly, is that the same thing as mitochondrial function? Like, are they going to feel tired? Is that what they're going to feel mostly? It's part of it. Yeah, there's 11 plus, every year they add different ones. It depends on what group you're looking at. But these hallmarks of aging, mitochondrial dysfunction, loss of cellular communication is another one. But these actually descendants of bacteria. Mitochondria have their own DNA, which I think is beautiful to think about that. They are non-human, but they're in every cell of your body. The theory is that they, eons ago, bigger cells engulfed these bacterial cells, and that's what's inside of every cell of our body.

9:00But there's this beautiful connection, this crosstalk between these cellular energy factories of our cell, mitochondria and this communication with our gut bacteria with our own mind and this bacterial crosstalk that's happening yes so mitochondrial dysfunction these what needs your your cells need to produce energy or atp and your mitochondria is what's doing that but your mitochondria can become leaky i'm sure people have heard of leaky gut syndrome or leaky brain syndrome maybe they haven't heard about that but it's sort of these increased blood brain barrier permeability or increased intestinal permeability.

9:37That's because the nervous system, the blood-brain barrier cells are more permeable. The cells of the gut lining are more permeable. What's actually happening before all of that, and that's sort of the onset of a lot of chronic health problems, are these bigger, larger global organ issues. But even more root than that is cell membrane problems and leaky mitochondria. Mitochondria release these reactive oxygen species. So again, you can think globally, systemically macro, but actually it's a microcellular problem. Okay. You mentioned leaky gut. And I feel like this is like every fricking woman I know has gut issues.

10:20What the hell is going, it has to be obviously tied to something hormonal that's going on, but like what the hell is going on? And the follow-up question to that, which I think is important for us to get to because this is because ultimately this is a podcast about relationships and it starts with the relationship with yourself and your relationship with your body and with your physical health is the same thing as your relationship is with your mental health but um i'm also seeing like it's the new information of of medicine and biology and And biohacking is creating a tremendous amount of neurosis I'm seeing in women.

10:59A lot of eating disorders. Now that like everything on my feet is leaky gut because I've had gut issues for a long time. And I'm just like now choosing to ignore. I just want to ignore it. I don't want to think about it anymore. But like what's going on with women that every woman has gut issues? I mean, not everyone, but it's pretty major. It's a lot of people. Yeah. A lot of women. A lot of women. And so - I don't know if you see that in your practice. Oh, it's - It's a stress. It's insane. It's a combination of things. And I look at labs all day long. So this isn't just hypothetical for me.

11:32This is actual data driven opinion. I have 16 years of, 16 plus years of clinical experience. I started the first functional medicine telehealth clinic, just for context for people. This isn't like some - No, yes. And I will be definitely saying that, yeah. Yeah, so this is, I want, you know, like I see these numbers and I see these numbers improve when someone improves. But I think you touched on something super important, like stressing about healthy things isn't good for your health. And that's where the nuance and context can be lost about these complex topics. And that's why podcasts are so important, right?

12:02People can hear the full context of this. And hopefully the person that's conveying that information is bringing the grace and compassion and nuance and context to know, yeah, while we're facing so many, like 50 million Americans have autoimmune conditions, 75 % of the immune system's in the gut. So to understand the sort of larger autoimmune issue, you have to look at where the predominance of the immune system resides. So yeah, it is a significant problem, but the point being is that these are things that you can overcome and heal and reverse. And we don't wanna pathologize everything or look for problems where there aren't problems.

12:37The person that's listening to this or watching this already knows their body. Like unplug, go offline, check in with your body. Don't let the fear of social media or clickbait stuff put fear into you, but check in with your body, educate yourself with information online, but have discernment to know when to unplug and just check in with yourself because it can mess with your mind. But the why, but the fact is we don't want to stress and have fear about something, but we don't want to put our head in the sand and act like it's not there. I'm not saying you're doing that. No, no, no, no. It's tempting for me to do it, but I can't.

13:12It's a combination of It's a combination. It's a combination of things. So why women? Well, there's a lot of numbers for that. I mean, you could look at globally, they're using, women use more products than men do. I think that's one potential. And the immunomodulating effects of estrogen and progesterone. It's just the fact of the matter is - It's hormones, it's always fucking hormones. Yeah, because they impact inflammation levels. Inflammation is a product of the immune system, 75 % of the immune system's in the gut. Estrogen and progesterone and cortisol influence this cascade. So if someone has a menstrual cycle, that impact of inflammation, how inflammation is modulated, is going to be more dynamic and sophisticated in women versus men.

13:52Yeah, it sucks. It does. And that's why exponentially more, I think it's like 15 to 1, some statistics say, of autoimmune conditions, women to men, because of that, because of the impact estrogen and progesterone has on the immune system, which the gut, it's the gut immune axis, It's the connection between the gut and the immune system. Can I share my theory? And I'm obviously not a doctor and this is just for fun. I want to know. Yeah. I think the rise of nut-based powder, like gluten-free flours and like smoothies and salads and eating a lot of coconut and almonds is screwing up a lot of people's microbiome.

14:38That is a hot take. That's a hot take. I would say that is certainly... I feel like I eat more processed foods now than I did when I was growing up because there's so many different options and quote-unquote healthy stuff that it's interesting when I'm putting... I'm like, why am I eating this? Well, it tastes good, but whereas before, it just would have been a chocolate chip cookie. Well, this is actually such a good point that you brought up because I actually talk about it in the book because I had something similar. I'm not a woman, but I think that people that are in more health conscious people.

15:11Yeah. On top of that, you have estrogen, progesterone. So it's going to be more exacerbated in women. And women are marketed to for these healthier things. Women are more predominantly in the wellness world. It's very female centric. So it makes complete sense why it would impact women for so many reasons, societally and also hormonally. But they like, you know, how many think about how many almonds you have to have to have an almond flower treat. Like we're not meant to eat that much almonds. Like humans would have foraged for these things. So it is hard to digest. I mean, what are they? What are nuts and seeds and legumes, beans?

15:47They are plant babies and nature wants to protect its plant babies. And there's more of these lectins and phytic acids and saponins and these plant anti-nutrients, which there's nothing inherently wrong with them, but the overconsumption of them and then the proper preparing of them, like soaking and sprouting and fermenting these things with grains. Which is what a lot of cultures actually do. Did traditionally. We just don't with the packaged foods that are healthier alternatives, but we're just over-consuming things that are hard on our guts, certainly. I love nuts so much, and they make me feel like shit, but I really do love nuts.

16:25I don't eat them at all because of that. I ate them for years, and then at a certain point, and we can dig into like stress and trauma, sort of perfect storm of stress and trauma, plus eating foods that are hard to digest was like they did not love me back all of a sudden. Yeah. Because you can, oftentimes people can get away with these things. When they're happy and relaxed. Right, right. When you're in more of a parasympathetic resting, digesting state. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And then there's going to come a time where something's got to give and your gut's like, okay, I cannot eat. That is a beast load of almonds.

17:01Or whatever nut you're talking about. We're picking on almonds. I know, I know. Any nut or seed. Any nut, I know, or seeds. Yeah. I know, I have a weakness for that and chocolate. This episode is sponsored by Indeed. If you're a small business, the right hire can be a make or break. Hoping that the right people see your job posting is actually not the best growth strategy because when the pressure is on and you need the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. So stop struggling to get your job posts even seen on other sites. Match with quality candidates with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And Sponsored Jobs boost your job posts in search results so you can reach the people that can help your business thrive.

17:46Plus, with Indeed Sponsored Jobs, you only pay for results. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now. And please support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Need to hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs. Okay, so I had a meditation teacher once teach something that was really profound. And he said, if you take two people, one is completely in a relaxed, parasympathetic state. And they eat a pizza. with real gluten and real cheese, nothing fancy.

18:33And then you take someone who's in a cortisol-driven, anxious, stressed out, chronically stressed out state, and they eat the rainbows on their plate, fresh fruits and vegetables and all the things that we're quote-unquote supposed to eat. He said that the person eating the pizza is going to absorb more nutrients and have a better experience in their tummy than the person who's stressed out and eating everything right. And I think he wasn't saying it to be dogmatic. It was more metaphorical. Yeah. And to prove his or to express his bigger point, which is that your state when you eat, your state whenever you do anything determines a law.

19:26I would say there's something profoundly true about that. Because what we feed our body obviously matters. But what are we feeding our head and our heart on a daily basis? That matters too. Our thoughts and emotions, which are a lot more complex and nebulous. It is impacting our state. Again, that sympathetic fight or flight or parasympathetic state. That resting, digesting state is a lot, is very poor. Like poor vagal tone is what's happening. That vagus nerve, which is responsible for that resting, digesting, it's very underactive. uh so people are not digesting things well and yeah it is uh the the influence that our thoughts and emotions have on our physiology are profound and it again it's it's creating cellular confusion is what's happening but it's a lot more abstract because it's more linear and prescriptive for me to say like focus on these foods looking at nutrient density or whatever anti-inflammatory or macronutrients or caloric intake all this sort of linear things it's a lot more abstract to say like don't have that stress, you know, stop that trauma, go on an elimination diet with trauma.

20:32It doesn't work like that. But it's important and needs to be looked at because it, not just what you eat, but like you said, what's your mindset and heartset and how you eat it influences what you do. And I see people, even foods that are, even to your point earlier, foods that would be otherwise fine, but the stress and anxiety around the food, it's orthorexia. It's disordered eating around healthy foods. I've seen this phenomenon within the health world. Well, it's rampant right now. Especially, it's rampant. Yeah. Well, and then is it the food or is it the stress and anxiety around the food?

21:05The inner resistance to that food. And people don't know what to eat. They don't know if they should be eating red meat. They don't know if they should be vegan. And people have lost touch with their inner knowing. Their own selves. Where in your professional career did it occur to you that the nervous system was a big part or a missing piece in medicine? It has always been a part of my work. I would just say the science is really substantiating things that I saw. So the more I see the science, it's these bigger aha moments of how profound it is, even the ones that you don't see clearly. But yeah, you can't hang around my hanging around.

21:47I mean, clinically monitoring and supporting and guiding people with autoimmune conditions, which is the predominance of my patients for 16 years, and not look at the influence that the stress and anxiety has on somebody's body. It's the larger neuro-immuno-endocrine axis, the intersection between the nervous system, the immune system, which is inflammation, the product of the immune system, and the endocrine system, the hormones. So it's always been a part of it. But I'm weird and been trained in functional medicine, so I never had that kind of conventional. I wasn't down the conventional route.

22:19but beautiful thing is it's more and more conventional conversations are talking about this stuff how do people when they hear that there's such a strong emotional component to what's going on in their body physiologically does that tend to stress people out more does it give them a sense of like control is it more um yeah it's an interesting question so i've seen both reactions because people think you know that i'm in sort of the functional medicine nutrition So they expect me to give them the food protocol, supplement protocol, peptides, some biohack, whatever. And then you talk, I have every telehealth patient fill out an ACE score, adverse childhood experience.

23:01And then why is he talking about that? Why is he talking about my childhood? Why is he asking about my relationships or my stress, this current stress state or, you know, what, what's my emotional, mental, emotional, spiritual health? I'm just coming here to talk about gut health. Why, why is he talking about it? So some people are not open to it. So you have to meet somebody where they're at. Because if you deal with the physiological, the physical stuff, i.e. improving gut health with food and whatever, peptide supplements, whatever you're supposed to. Because the key thing is what do they have inner resistance towards and what are they ready for?

23:37Because stressing about healthy things isn't good for their health. So there's that. Plus it's okay. Well, maybe what's their in? Maybe their in is improving their gut health with a food protocol. And then when someone's less inflamed, they're going to be less dysregulated. Yes. And things that used to overwhelm them aren't going to overwhelm them so much. So maybe at that point you have to deal with the, you know, the gut first before you deal with the feelings. And for some people, it's the opposite. And they're really, they're self-sabotaging in such a deep way that you have to deal with the mental, emotional, spiritual to not self-sabotage so much.

24:13Because we know, again, your relationship with yourself influences so many choices, including the foods that you eat and the habits that you keep. That's definitely true. And your relationship with others. I have found that people who are really struggling in their relationships, whether it's romantic, whether it's familial, whether it's something at work, that their mental and physical health really take a strong hit. and that you really can't separate the two. Have you noticed that in people having, maybe going through divorce or going through something very difficult in their life with a key person in their life affecting their physical health?

24:57Yeah, it is. And these are the things you have to take inventory of. This is what's part of a thorough health history on a clinical setting. Or for the listener or viewer out there, it's you checking in with these things. It's sometimes it is the areas you wouldn't expect that when you become aware of, oh, I was fine until I was going through, I was a caretaker for a parent or the stressful season of my life or my relationship issues, whatever the case may be, to look at things like chronic stress. And then of course, it's sort of larger, not larger, but this other more abstract concept of childhood trauma needs to be looked at as well.

25:35Because we know that an ACE score of just like four, I think the data is 15, 30, depending on the health problem you're talking about, 15 to 30 times increased risk of an autoimmune problem, metabolic problem, mental health issue, some inflammatory issue. But what's all this stuff doing? Both the physical and the mental, emotional, spiritual, when you're talking about that mismatch, it's making our cells feel unsafe. And when our cells feel unsafe, the cell danger response happens. and what happens? The membrane, the cell membrane, this healthy fat phospholipid membrane becomes more rigid, more oxidized, less permeable.

26:12There's mitochondria that you mentioned. They're becoming more inflammatory, secreting these reactive oxygen species. And these guardian angels of the cell called sirtuins kind of lose their way. They kind of lose their ability to protect the DNA. and that creates a cellular cascade of confusion. The body, the cell cannot distinguish between a physiological threat and a psychological threat. That's true. So you have to, maybe it's an inflammatory food that doesn't love your body back for one person. Maybe it's an environmental toxin for another person. Maybe it's chronic stress, unresolved trauma, your relationship with the present moment or the past that's living in your cells there epigenetically.

26:56So for most people, it's both and. It's a confluence of factors. But this is the granular stuff you have to dig into. People's relationships are feedback, information for the cells. And are they creating cellular safety or cellular unsafety? Cellular unsafety will make the cell defensive and create health problems. This episode is sponsored by Masterclass. I have learned how to cook on Masterclass and I love it so much. is the world's best instructors. Unlike other learning platforms, Masterclass puts you in the room with the people who define their fields. Not just experts, but the best in the world.

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28:18Head to masterclass.com slash JOL to see the latest offer. How do we make ourselves feel ourselves? Interesting. Yeah. plan where that was that was a Freudian slip or I don't know what kind of stuff how do we make ourselves feel safer we have to decrease that mismatch so it's you taking my by that I mean you have to decrease the mismatch between genetics and epigenetics so if our cells are if there's this proverbial static this this noise that's happening in the cell because this mismatch that is cells need to communicate, to know what it's supposed to do. So the analogy that's used in the literature or in the space, I should say, from the people that write the literature is kind of like a scratched CD or scratched record.

29:06The information's there if you play the record. The information's there if you play the CD, but it's jumping around. It's scratchy. It's muffled. You're not getting all the message. That's what's actually happening on a cellular level because of this onslaught of different variables. and by increasing cellular communication, what you are in effect doing, the analogy is to sort of clean off, buffer that scratch CDA record so that the cell can actually remember what it was meant to do. So the brain cell can remember, I'm a brain cell. And the heart cell can remember, I'm a heart cell. The ovarian cell can remember, I'm an ovarian cell, whatever cell you're talking about.

29:44So when the cell has confusion, it's known in the research as x differentiation so differentiation is what we need because we need our hormones to know i need to be a hormone we need the brain to know i the nervous system i'm a nervous system cell i need to behave like a healthy nervous system cell x differentiation is that scratchy cd or record so to answer your question how to reprogram that cell so to speak to improve cellular awareness you need to figure out the areas that are causing that mismatch so i would say the top areas you need to look at and just for everybody it's going to be different it's going to be the foods you're eating do what foods love your body back which ones don't this isn't a moral judgment this is just and it could be like it could actually and some of the foods that don't love you back could actually be quote-unquote healthy foods right yeah you have to meet your body where it's at yeah and that goes back to gut health because because if a food is a whole food under the umbrella of whole nutrient dense foods because of what we've done to the human microbiome, which is a larger, you know, connection to the soil microbiome and our farming and the food that's grown in the soil and the food that eats the food that's grown in the soil.

30:55This mismatch again. Yes, it's bio-individual. There's no hard and fast rules of just eat clean foods or eat healthy foods because even like I can mention every food compound under the sun, You know, fermented foods, wonderful food medicine for some people. It's high in histamines for some people for histamine intolerance. Even those grains and beans and grains, some people do fine. And some people flares them up. So it's so bio-individual and like finding out what loves your body back. Again, not comparing yourself to someone in social media, but it's the foods you're eating and foods you're not eating.

31:34The nutrient deficiency, your body's alive because of the brilliant biochemistry. So the foods you eat, it provides the vitamins and minerals and macronutrients, the proteins, fats and carbs that are the substrates to influence cellular communication. So your body can actually repair and rebuild and regenerate. It's not just what you eat, but when you eat. A lot of the researchers referred to a lot of chronic health problems as chronobiological, chronobiological, meaning that we're eating too much foods that don't love us back too often and not enough of this sort of cellular siesta time where times of fasting, which our ancestors would have done intentionally for different therapeutic purposes.

32:15And then because of food scarcity, food wasn't always around. Again, our genetics haven't changed in thousands of years. So eat in alignment with where our cells came from. I would say our relationship to light, which I mentioned earlier, screens and things like that. Environmental toxins, herbicides, pesticides, microplastics, heavy metals. Which is kind of impossible to avoid entirely, right? Yeah, you can't avoid it entirely. That's why building resilience is so important. You have to do what you can to minimize exposure. Do the best you can and give the rest to God. Again, stressing about the stuff isn't good.

32:49And then the stress and trauma and spiritual disconnection would be the last piece. Biotoxins are on that list too, like mold and viruses. But I would say most of the time it's actually a man-made EMF problem more than anything. That mold's been around for eons. Toxic mold's never healthy. So basically our devices and the computers and all of that. It's too much. We need to start to mitigate and eat and live closer to the earth. if you eat if you live your life and simplify your life in this way you can still have all the blessings of modernity but do it in a more sustainable way i i really think that's like the biggest key i mean the amount of times i speak to people and they're like i have a headache and it's like yeah it's it's your device and i look i'm guilty of this too like sometimes i'll i've become much better at it and i have like certain boundaries that i have but sometimes i break those boundaries and I'll be like on my phone like late at night and and I sleep like shit that night and I feel like total crap as a result it really really does affect you it does and some people are more sensitive than other there's that interplay between genetics and epigenetics like the analogy that's used genetics loads the gun epigenetics pulls the trigger so some people have of different methylation and HLA gene variants that there's nothing wrong with them.

34:11We're all different. There's bio-individuality. But that's why some people can be in a high EMF house and have mold and be fine. Their body has resilience. Some people don't. So we have to look at this combination of different epigenetic and genetic variables. And that's why there's so much systemic medical gaslighting around these topics because there's so much, the nuance and context is lost because you have one person's like, no, I know my body and I don't feel good whenever this thing happens or I do this and the next person's fine. But these are the people that I've talked to for a lot of hours over the years to know that this is very real.

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35:32I put it on sometimes before the shower, sometimes after. and everyone who like people, I get complimented on. They're like, your skin is glowing and it's this. And I just started using the Ondaria Algae Butter, body butter, because my skin can get a little dry. And, you know, it hydrates you for up to 72 hours. I mean, these are literally my new favorite products. So just go to oseamalibu.com and get 10 % off your first order with code Jillian. that's oseamalibu.com code jillian can you if you have the epigenetics that makes it so that is harder for you to handle certain emf situations or whatever methylation situations can you become more resilient yeah you can so the analogy it's a simple analogy but i think it's brings it home everyone has their own bio individual ability to handle stressors so the things that make our cells feel unsafe those things that i just mentioned right and the physical and the mental emotional spiritual so some people and the more genetic variants you have it's like the smaller the bucket is so these are methylation gene variants detoxification gene variants something called hla or human leukocyte antigens it's your body's ability to detox regulate inflammation and to build new things some people have these heterozygous and homozygous gene variants or single nucleotide polymorphisms.

36:56The more you have of these gene variants, and it's a combination of many of them, we're not just one gene. So we are, but a product of all of these things is like a proverbial shrinking of the bucket, meaning that your bucket's going to overflow easier. And what fills up that bucket are the things that make your cells feel unsafe. So it's the foods you're eating or not eating. It's environmental toxins, it's stress trauma. It's all that stuff, thoughts, all that. You can't change your bucket size, but you can change what you put in it. So to understand that interplay between genetics and epigenetics is what I do.

37:29And it is fascinating, but you don't have to understand it all. But you know intuitively already, yeah, I'm a more sensitive person. People say I'm more of an empath or I respond to things where other people don't. You already know, okay, and we can quantify this looking at genes, but there's a lot of agency that we wield, even the smallest bucket people, which I see a lot of them, they wield a lot of influence to empty that proverbial bucket so you have wiggle room, you have resilience, you don't have to live in fear. Like cry at times, some meditation, whatever. Improving your gut health. Improving your gut health, yeah.

38:04Lowering inflammation levels. How do you make your body feel safe? So yeah, maybe you'll never be a big bucket person. Like you'll never be able to like... I'll never be a big bucket person. Yeah, right. But like, and you know what, you'll have healthy boundaries with yourself, which isn't it the most best awareness and discernment. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, I won't, have 50 almond flour cupcakes. I'll have two maybe. I will not. I will not do it. Or whatever it is, right? It's anything that you have. But when you've created that wiggle room and resilience, that center and you've grounded and you've improved your health, you have better clarity because you have this awareness of what loves your body back and what doesn't.

38:47And it could be a food. It could be a person. It could be a relationship. It doesn't have to be something nutritionally. Yeah, that's it's pretty major. You know, when I was reading your book, so you wrote this with Dr. Josh Axe and both of you lost your fathers. It was my dad and his father, father-in-law. Okay. His wife, Chelsea's dad. Okay. So you lost your father. He was 60, 63 and, and quote unquote healthy, like fit from the outside. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, he was picking up my mom my mom was actually down here in florida not here but somewhere else in florida and visiting her mom my grandma was 102 years old at the time and my dad was driving to pick her up at the airport back in pennsylvania and never made it he lost consciousness from some cardiovascular event and sped into a tree at full speed and broke his neck um but he had cardiovascular problems.

39:41And this is the autopsy. We saw all this, but it was all hindsight's 2020, right? Is this why you do what you do? Do you think that was... This just happened a few years ago. This just happened in 2023. So it was why I thought I never would write a book again, actually, because it was such a stressful time in my life. I was running the telehealth clinic full time. I was doing my podcast. I'm so sorry. I thought this was something that happened. No, this just happened three years ago. But look, the statistics are clear. I mean, 50 % of people who have a heart attack or stroke, their first symptom is death.

40:15So you, this is, again, just awareness of what do you have agency on? And that's why being proactive with your health. We can't control everything. Again, do the best you can and give the rest to God. But like, there are many things that I know that my dad wasn't doing. He was a typical, not to stereotype guys, but, and I see this for with women too, increasingly because of this health analysis of paralysis it's almost like i don't want to look at the labs i don't want to look at this stuff and my dad was the type of guy of a certain age in his 60s that was like i'll just do what i always did i'll just eat clean and work out i know what to do so he just did but what he did in his 20s 30s 40s and 50s wasn't cutting it this sort of accumulative effect of living in this modern world he needed to dig deeper and we wanted to dig deeper and heal yourself that's why i wrote the book that's why dr ax and i wrote the book to be able to show people what's beyond the basics.

41:06For someone that is more health conscious already, we're not going to just write a book for the sake of it. Like I really wanted to dig into what does a science show to really reverse cellular aging, improve biomarkers in a real tangible way. So that's, yeah, that's kind of the genesis of the book. Well, that's a very important book to write because it is, I mean, it is, does really boil down to cells and aging and whatnot. And something that you said in the beginning, which I think is so important, it's not just about longevity, it's about feeling good while you're alive. Oh, yeah. Well, see, that's my beef with a lot of longevity.

41:46Because it's this promise for the future. So you're sort of selling fear in a way, to fearing death. And that's not where we're coming from in Heal Yourself. That's not where I'm coming from. It's wanting to feel well. You want to feel vital. Yeah. How can you, yes, add years to your life? We know the science is showing that. That's how do we improve health span and longevity, but how do we add life to your years? How are you feeling now? Do you have a full life now? And I see so many people kept back from living the life that they want to, that's on their heart. Because when you're dysregulated, inflamed, foggy, wired, and tired, you are not thriving.

42:25It's impacting your relationship with yourself and it's impacting your relationship with other people oh 100 you because you can't show up for others you can't show up you're just trying to keep your head above water yeah yeah yeah you have to you have to learn what you need to do to fill your cup so that you can actually relate better to others it's incredibly important so let's just say someone is listening to this or watching this and they're like i'm here like i'm i'm dysregulated i feel inflamed i don't even know where to start obviously start with your book but is there anything else that you would have Yeah.

42:57Well, look at these mismatches that I talked about. What makes you feel unsafe on a cellular level? And you have 30 trillion cells that are eavesdropping on every thought and word that you see and speak. Feeling unsafe on a cellular level would be indicated by what? By feeling overwhelmed? By feeling like, by having a lot of symptoms, GI symptoms? It's any chronic health problem you can assume. If you are not thriving. So that's a good point. We are so divorced from our bodies. We've normalized things that are actually not normal. Not normal, yeah. So what are proverbial check engine lights? What's your body giving you some clues to listen to the cues before they become screams in the form of health problems?

43:39But if you do have the screams of health problems, that's obviously more obvious, right? But there's a subtle signs because by the time somebody is diagnosed, I think I probably said this at the start. By the time somebody's diagnosed with a health problem, an autoimmune problem, cancer, heart disease, it's about four to ten years prior to that diagnosis that things are brewing on the cellular dysfunction spectrum. So brain fog and fatigue are definitely up there. Anxiety, depression are definitely up there. Digestive problems, like two to three snakes a day as far as bowel movements are concerned.

44:11Many women, many people aren't. We're supposed to have two to three a day? I could be a little bit looser and say one to three because when I say two to three people, we're like, wow, overachiever. I feel like that's only guys. Yeah, right, yeah. I feel like only guys is like that. You can be completely normal depending on how much you're eating to do one to three. Okay. But if you're eating good, nutrient-dense, nourishing foods, yeah, I would say... Women, so many women are constipated. Oh, yeah. Well, see, as it's like the hermetic phrase, as above, so below, as within, so without. There's actual cellular constipation going on now because as we have organs, like our intestines, Our cells have organelles, right?

44:48We've learned this in elementary school. And the byproduct of energy, your body sort of, as we eat food and have to go to the bathroom or should, that's what happens to our cells. But when our cells feel unsafe, the membrane becomes more rigid. So the good stuff can't get in and the bad stuff can't get out. That's what's happening. We have cellular constipation. So things we can do is just looking at, focusing on nutrient dense foods, anti-inflammatory foods. I call it a lot of specific foods in the book, but I'll talk about one. It's a whole class of foods that are centered around what's called xenohormesis.

45:25Hormesis is the dose makes the poison, right? It's things like intermittent fasting, high-intensity interval training, cold punch, sauna, ketogenic diet with fasting mimicking. Anything that mimics stress are what researchers call adversity mimetics. it stimulates your cells to become more resilient. You're upregulating these cellular recycling pathways like autophagy. Your cell has the ability to actually grab all the built-up constipation, if you will. It creates what's called an autophagosome. It puts the trash in the cell into a trash bag and attaches a lysosime. It's called an autolysozyme and dissolves all the junk.

46:06Your cell has that. But tapping into things that are hormetic in nature is like a cell gym or a cell training renewal system. So I'm digressing, but there's a class of plant foods that are high in polyphenols that are, think of like a richly colored berry, a richly colored pomegranate, a bitter herb, a brightly colored spice like turmeric. a bitter tea or a bitter olive, extra virgin olive oil. What's the bitterness? What's the bright colors? They're polyphenols and flavonoids, these plant compounds that are xenohormetic, meaning the plant that went through stressful things in its life because of the sun, because of bugs eating it, because of the soil, because of the drought.

46:56The more difficult the plant life the plant went through, the cells of that plant actually teach ourselves to become more resilient. That is wild and very cool. So which plants are these? The bitter, well, that's... Like dandelion root? Like that kind of? Beautiful, yeah. Yeah. Herbs and spices. Okay. The bitter, the better is generally the advice. Brightly colored, tart, bitter berries. Like pomegranate powder? Pomegranates or pomegranate powder. Yeah, so one could be, like, I do like a polyphenol blend called Live 120. But food is first. I'm obsessed with spirulina. I see. These breech pigments, these are beautiful.

47:33that EGCG and catechins and green tea and puerh tea and oolong tea, these sort of dark, rich, colored teas, these bitter teas, they're xenoharmetic. So they're kind of a cellular renewal, and they kind of tell the cell, hey, this is who you are. This is so... So the more stress that that plant... went through, the more its cellular chemistry changes and then teaches ourselves to become more resilient. Yeah, exactly. It upregulates autophagy. It is. It's beautiful. We are intimately connected to nature. And it is nature's trying to help us. And we just have divorced ourselves from it. So it's really beautiful.

48:20And these are very nutrient-dense foods. So extra virgin olive oil, good dark teas, green teas, like the bitter teas. And the oolong teas. Oolong tea, puerh tea, green teas. have a lot of great research. Rosemary, thyme, basil, turmeric. A lot of these are known in the research as methyl adaptogens, which is just another, I think, beautiful way of thinking about this. Adaptogens, people think of ashwagandha, rhodiola, and they work on the neuroendocrine brain hormonal axis. But the methyl adaptogens, these compounds that are all I just said, these foods, mainly foods, that you can get in supplement form, but should be predominantly in food form, they regulate your cell.

49:04So the scratchiness that I talked about earlier, that's creating that cellular confusion, that sort of CD record player, that's actually from something called over-methylation because of the stress of modernity. Well, all these xenohormetic foods that I just talked about is a way to sort of buffer and methylate just right, but also demethylate just right. So it's sort of a cellular reprogramming that's happening when people focus on these foods. And then fasting is a great tool as well. And then, of course, like you mentioned the journal speak earlier. Like I have every telehealth patient do journal speak.

49:42Like 20 minutes, what does it feel like to be me today? Which is a heavy loaded question for someone that doesn't feel so good. Yeah, absolutely. But we make it a prescription just as we would a peptide protocol. I mean, it's journaling, it's metabolizing stored stress in the body to allow the cells to know that it's safe, at least moving towards that. Yeah, absolutely. This episode is sponsored by Lola Blankets. I have a Lola blanket on my bed right now. I am obsessed with it. I've been obsessed with it. My dog is obsessed with it. It's literally one of the best products I've ever used. Honestly, it is so soft.

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51:03Just head to lolablankets.com and use code Jillian to get 40 % off your order. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you. Wrap yourself up in luxury with Lola Blankets. This is fascinating. Thanks. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you feel that is very important to share? No, I think we wield a lot of influence. I think people feel like it's immutable. It's just my lot in life, and they make it their personality. They make their dysregulation their personality. They make their anxiety, depression, brain fog, fatigue.

51:43It's just me. I'm not a morning person. It becomes part of their identity 100%. Yeah. if it can be reversed and optimized and nourished and balanced, it's not your personality. It is just your everyday. And there's so many people, the best version of themselves, subtly under the dysregulation. And they'll be a better version of themselves, right? They'll be the more thriving, shining version of themselves when they start leaning into these practices. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be so overwhelming. No, lean into it. That's another important message too. You do not have to have it all figured out.

52:16No. Lean into it. and know how much information you can take, right? So it's good to be empowered and informed. But again, stressing about this stuff isn't good for your health. So it's better to just, what can you be consistent with today? So maybe it's just pick two things that I talked about today and be consistent, get it under your belt. And what overwhelmed you today isn't gonna overwhelm you at a certain point. Then you can lean into the next thing and the next thing. I think starting with not consuming the foods that don't like you. And it doesn't mean they're gonna not like you always, but just right now they don't like you.

52:51And just listening to that and just being like, it's okay if it's broccoli, it's okay if it's spinach, it's okay if it's a healthy food, whatever it is, just if it doesn't like you, don't like it back. And don't, yeah, don't, and realize, don't make that your personality either, right? It's like, well, this is bad or I'll never be able to eat this. No, no, no. When you improve resilience and your cells feel safer, I see people reintroduce a lot of foods that used to have food sensitivities to that aren't a problem anymore. So is it the food again, or is it that it's stressing an already stressed system?

53:24That's the system. This is fascinating. Thank you. Heal Yourselves, when is it out? September 8th. So probably... Okay, so that's what we're going to say. So Heal Yourselves is out now. It's out now. Wherever books are sold, and we are definitely linking it in the show notes, and people should run, not walk. Thank you. also it was a collaboration and that must have been interesting yeah it was different i i loved it it was like a standing writing every week we wrote for a chapter at a time uh and i never wrote a book it was and to do it with a friend and colleague like dr axe is such a blessing yeah it's wonderful yeah well um thank you so much for your contribution to the world and to medicine and to just helping so many people um heal from from things that i just feel like no one should have to live with autoimmune.

54:14Yeah, it is. Yeah, you're right. We have, our body is capable of so much healing, but we have to do something different. We have to do something different. Yeah. So I just wanted to really honor the fact that you do so much for other people and contribute so much to the world, really. And so I thank you for that. Thank you so much. And I thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. From the studio that brought you WandaVision. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore. The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that?

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